Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, Colonel, US Air Force (Ret.), interweaves his
story and that of his family with the larger history of World War II and
the postwar world through a moving recollection and exploration of
Fassberg, a small town in Germany few have heard of and fewer remember.
Created in 1933 by the Hitler regime to train German aircrews, Fassberg
hosted Samuel's father in 1944-45 as an officer in the German air force.
As fate and Germany's collapse chased young Wolfgang, Fassberg later
became his home as a postwar refugee, frightened, traumatized, hungry,
and cold.
Built for war, Fassberg made its next mark as a harbinger of the new
Cold War, serving as one of the operating bases for Allied aircraft
during the Berlin Airlift in 1948. With the end of the Berlin Crisis,
the airbase and town faced a dire future. When the Royal Air Force
declared the airbase surplus to its needs, it also signed the place's
death warrant, yet increasing Cold War tensions salvaged both base and
town. Fassberg transformed again, this time into a forward operating
base for NATO aircraft, including a fighter flown by Samuel's son.
Both personal revelation and world history, replete with tales from
pilots, mechanics, and all those whose lives intersected there, Flights
from Fassberg provides context to the Berlin Airlift and its strategic
impact, the development of NATO, and the establishment of the West
German nation. The little town built for war survived to serve as a
refuge for a lasting peace.
